Category: prose
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2101: Six Sentence Story
Untitled In the church across the road, up a hill too steep for cars when it snows, they gather every evening — always the same few — coats damp, smelling of wool and fish. They sit on worn pews, reciting worn prayers, asking for health, or pardon, or nothing they can name, until twilight and…
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200125: Six Sentence Story
Dancing with Lions — Part 2 Brigid arrived home from the Six Sentence Café and Bistro in a rainstorm designed by and for fish; the gin was still amusing her, but even so it was an impressively Dickensian squall. She went straight to the kitchen, reached for a frosted mug, dropped in two scoops of…
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1901: A Gogyohka Poem
A Gogyohka Poem Untitled last night’s snowstill holds the breathof those who never came home.my hand sinks in.its silence begins to burn. I will be herewaiting when the crocus return,and the snow drips like punctuationfrom my wrist. the crocus will risefrom a grave of ice,but I no longer flinchat the sting.I write spring in scars.…
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1301: Six Sentence Story
Dancing with Lions She anchors her black stiletto heel to the bar stool; the ritual wait for a man that doesn’t exist, polishing the fantasy of him until it shines. A muffled laugh works loose, a private rebellion echoing in her throat — the kind you make when a voice you invent leans in and…
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120126: Calarcá
Calarcá, Colombia: Two Days Before Christmas I.Night View The village square is a wound stitched with fairylights.Luminous sutureson the velvet of night. The plastic kings in earnest ride,the donkey, a cow,and Godnewborn abide. And from the church,a martial woven pleamarches forward in lockstep harmony. But turn your eye,just turn your head,the alley breathes beside the…
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09.01: Csárdás
Csárdás — (myth in the bones, fire in the blood) It begins with a single note.Thin. Aching.A thread of winter smokeunraveling from a fiddle. The room stills.Dust rises like memory.Somewhere in that soundis a field at dusk,an empty chair,a story your grandmother once whisperedwhen she thought you were asleep. But then —the pulse strikes. The…
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0701: A Six Sentence Story
Clinging to Small Solid Facts in Six Sentences We talk about Venezuela, as if naming it might steady the water, and I drift in the jacuzzi like a bubble, briefly convinced of my own shape. I mention that Einstein had flat feet — facts don’t ask questions because saying something solid feels like ballast against…
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30.12: Six Sentence Story
It Sings at Night At dusk, on the edge of a pond bordered by palms and deciduous trees that have forgotten how to lose their leaves, a call rises only at night that sounds like a woodpecker at work. There are, however, no woodpeckers in the forest of Anapoima, Colombia. This is a goatsucker; a…
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25 December: After the Funeral
A Six Sentence Story After the Funeral After the funeral, after everyone returned to their version of living, we covered the mirrors with black cloth, draped like shawls, like leftover fabric scraps, anything to keep the glass from looking back at us. Sometimes a corner would slip loose, and the mirror would peek through —…
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17.12: Six Sentence Story
Note to my readers: I’m travelling for the next few weeks in Colombia. I’ll be reading with gratitude, even if I can’t reply properly immediately. El Mohán: the Colombian River Spirit Time braids itself into the mist and murmur of the Río Magdalena, where women wash laundry in silence and speak of El Mohán only…
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